skyhook

Noun

skyhook (plural skyhooks)

1. A hook imagined to be suspended in midair.
   • Those who yearn for skyhooks call those who eagerly settle for cranes "reductionists", and they can often make reductionism seem philistine and heartless.1995, Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, →ISBN, page 80
   • It wasn't a miraculous skyhook—no god was needed.2012 June 19, Jonnie Hughes, On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves), New York: Free Press, →ISBN, page 188
2. An overhead winch.
   • To each bolt attach a short length of chain and then run the individual chains to another large one that is run up to the skyhook, which is nothing more than a ratchet cable winch held by an overhead rafter.2009 January, Mike Brown, “The Art of Dismantling Your Restoration Project”, in Walneck's Classic Cycle Trader, page 109
   • Jeta stood with her knobbly fists on her hips watching the two of them Goo the cylinders to the skyhooks. Those were the invaluable little workhorses of the construction forces everywhere. A simple but powerful grav unit with a winch and a hook.2013, Mike Ginns, Jared's Song: Elrek's Rise, Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, page 394
3. A helicopter that lifts and transports heavy objects suspended by a heavy cable.
4. A proposed momentum-exchange tether for launching payloads into low Earth orbit by hooking them to the end of a cable that reaches down from an orbiting station into the upper atmosphere.
   • It was during those battles that ORBITAL-class armor was deployed to secure and defend the skyhooks and tethers above Earth, Luna, and Mars.2013 September 16, Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide, New York: DK, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 159
5. (slang) A CB radio antenna.
   • […] despite the absence of the proverbial home-grown 75-foot high steel "sky hook."1982, Amateur Radio, volume 38, numbers 7-12, page 34
6. A form of the overhead smash in which the eastern grip is used to hit the ball farther behind the body than usually possible.
7. A small hook for gripping small and slippery protrusions.

   Synonyms:

   bathook

8. (board sports) A device covering the rider's boot and sometimes screwed to the board, to facilitate jumping and enhance stability.
   • Tom bought the rights to a plastic board that had a skateboard deck and skyhooks.2003, Caroline Unger, Surfing Long Beach Island, page 101